[Foundation-l] Mission & Vision statement updated

David Gerard dgerard at gmail.com
Thu Apr 26 16:46:39 UTC 2007


On 26/04/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 4/26/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:

> > It still has the language "free licence" which I personally would think would
> > implicitly (if not explicitly) mean "free content available in formats under free
> > licences"

> There are plenty of open source decoders for patented file formats, so
> that wouldn't necessarily be clear enough. One can always make up
> phrases such as "unfettered file formats" and explain them elsewhere.
> I'm generally supportive of incorporating a free&open format clause,
> as I think the issue is becoming very hot with Windows Vista's
> built-in DRM malware, the MP3 lawsuit, and so on.


The problem is that software patents exist at all, and that everything
is susceptible to submarine attack. Hell, a submarine attack on *JPEG*
worked for a time.

A mission statement needs to be *concise*. You can't hang subclauses
off it and expect to have something any sane person could remember and
apply. "We're here to write an encyclopedia." THAT is a mission
statement.

On the free formats thing - it's easy enough to argue that free
content isn't free content in an encumbered format. You don't need to
fog the mission statement with that one.


- d.



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